Afternoon Tea 10.14.2020 - Bad Behavior

Global rich mourn the loss of Cyprus' luxury visa program, OKC ran out of ICU beds, judges suck, and coke washed up on NL beaches.

October 14, 2020

Cyprus ends its luxury visa program, Oklahoma City runs out of ICU beds, New York State Judges behaving badly, how Trump’s trade deal with China tilted his response to COVID, and bundles of cocaine wash up on shores of the Netherlands. It’s Wednesday, October 14 2020, and this is the Tea.

Cyprus officials implicated in plan to sell passport to criminals (AJZ) & Cyprus scraps ‘golden passport’ scheme in a blow to rich Chinese nationals (SCMP) A lovely two act play, wherein you could get citizenship to Cyprus for $2.5million, which gave you access to the EU region. It was a gorgeous little grift for Cyprus and authoritarians, but after Al-Jazeera’s hilariously comprehensive expose, the program was scuttled.

Investors Are Already Treating America Like an Emerging Market (Foreign Policy) When people ask how world markets will respond to Trump, the answer is that they already have.

How Trump’s China Trade Deal Steered His Response to COVID (The Daily Beast) Infuriating excerpt from “The Useful Idiot” threading the needle between Trump’s desperate need to get a Trade Deal done and his related inability to confront China early on, as to not disrupt the deal that they might not even fully comply with now.

COVID-19 cases by state-level partisanship (DanGoodSpeed) Spectacularly depressing visualization of how red states have outstripped blue states in case confirmations per capita. Make sure to click and tool around on the data as it’s quite well put together.

As mask ordinance is extended, COVID-19 surges, and OKC has no ICU beds available (The Oklahoman) Related to the previous item somehow.

A Broken Bond: How New York Judges Are Getting Around Bail Reform (TheCity) To get around bail reforms, judges have been setting partially secured bond levels at astronomical levels. In the past, family or friends could meet a 10-20% PSB amount to get their loved one out of jail, but when the Judge makes the PSB almost 100% higher than the cash bail amount, there’s nothing most poor/working families can do.

'Intoxicated' NY Judge Shoved Officer, Invoked Ties To Power (Law360) I’ll just quote the article to make my point about unequal protection under the law:

Law360 obtained the videos of the police detaining Grisanti and his wife late last week through a Freedom of Information Law request. The profanity-laced footage reveals in detail that the state senator-turned-judge used physical force against police and justified it, repeatedly threatened officers, and touted his political connections. The Grisantis were not arrested or charged with any crime for what happened that night.

Carlo Acutis: Italian teenager could be first millennial saint (BBC News) A miracle has been attributed to the deceased boy, a Brazilian child with a rare pancreatic disease was cured without explanation. Hey Millennials, we’re getting old.

Coronavirus-shaped dessert a hit at central Prague cafe (Expats.cz) Apparently it’s so popular you gotta order your Rona treat in advance.

America Has Lost Its Taste for Iceberg Lettuce (Bloomberg) Thank Christ. If fancy restaurants ever happen again, I won’t have to pretend a “Wedge” is a salad

300 packets of washed up cocaine send 'fortune hunters' to Dutch beach (NL Times) When 300 bundles of coke show up on a beach, maybe don’t broadcast the clean up efforts.

Song of the Tea: I love when a song is existentially fucked but totally accurate from a physics perspective. Easily xKore’s crowning achievement.

The only way out is through.

Yours,T